In the absence of humans, global sea level might have dropped a smidge last century, according to a detailed analysis of our past and future climate published today in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. Instead, sea level rose about 5.5 inches—faster than it has in at least 27 centuries.

Rising sea-levels will someday put several American cities completely, or partially, underwater. Here are the U.S. cities that could be submerged by sea-levels in approximately 200 years—and what you can expect for your own city in the future.

If we burned all the coal, oil and gas that’s left in the ground, we’d melt Antarctica and global sea levels would rise as much as 60 meters (200 feet) over the next ten thousand years. Coastal cities from New York to Shanghai would wind up deep underwater.

There are about 330 million cubic miles of water in the world oceans today, 97% of all the water on the planet. Early in our planet’s 4.5 billion year history, water from the atmosphere and from the interior of the Earth gradually collected in the low areas on the planet’s surface to form the ocean basins,…

Geology is usually so intuitive, it's rare to find something that goes against your instincts. But isostatic rebound creates a moment of exactly that: the more landlocked glaciers melt, the lower the local sea levels drop. Here's how.

Our dynamic planet has an apparent paradox: the more ice melts from landlocked glaciers, the lower the sea level gets in nearby areas. How does this happen? Through the physics of isostatic rebound, when the surface of the planet acts as an elastic sheet dimpling and rebounding under changing loads.

Most of us have probably never given a second thought as to how sea level is determined. It's basically where the ocean starts, right? Not even close. It turns out there are countless factors that have to be taken into account because the oceans simply aren't at the same level all around the world.

Sea levels are on the rise. Is your home at risk of being submerged in the next 10, 50, 100, 300 years? The New York Times is featuring a great interactive applet that will help you find out. Unlike Surging Seas (the similarly themed applet launched by the folks at Climate Central earlier this year), the NYT app…

We all know sea levels are rising — since 1880, global sea levels have risen by about 8 inches, and the rate of rise is increasing every year — but what sort of effect can we expect these increases to have on our day-to-day lives?

Ocean levels have risen several inches over the last century, and that's only likely to increase going forward. Most of that is related to climate change — but now scientists may have discovered a hidden factor in all this: irrigation.

The fact that sea levels are rising probably won't come as a huge surprise. But we now have some much-needed historical context for the melting icecaps and rising waters...and there's zero doubt that, in geological history, higher sea levels meant higher temperatures.

As sea levels rise, an extraordinary population shift will place immense stress on cities around the world. Where will global warming refugees go? One design team envisions an "Embassy of the Drowned Nations" to provide asylum, and a fresh start.